NationStates Jolt Archive

Faster than light travel is the stuff of science fiction, right? It's impossible.

Well, perhaps not. I'm a failed physics student, so I don't really have the authority/expertise to make any judgements, but what the hell. Although it's cool, it does sound like wishful thinking meets wacky theories.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.


The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and scientists working for the American Department of Energy - which has a device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory withstands further scrutiny.

Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put forward the idea, told The Scotsman that if everything went well a working engine could be tested in about five years.

However, Prof Hauser, a physicist at the Applied Sciences University in Salzgitter, Germany, and a former chief of aerodynamics at the European Space Agency, cautioned it was based on a highly controversial theory that would require a significant change in the current understanding of the laws of physics.

"It would be amazing. I have been working on propulsion systems for quite a while and it would be the most amazing thing. The benefits would be almost unlimited," he said.

"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.

"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."

He said the engine would enable spaceships to travel to different solar systems. "If the theory is correct then this is not science fiction, it is science fact," Prof Hauser said.

"NASA have contacted me and next week I'm going to see someone from the [US] air force to talk about it further, but it is at a very early stage. I think the best-case scenario would be within the next five years [to build a test device] if the technology works."

The US authorities' attention was attracted after Prof Hauser and an Austrian colleague, Walter Droscher, wrote a paper called "Guidelines for a space propulsion device based on Heim's quantum theory".

And for another thing, we know now how good the Americans are at investigating things that are really real.

We've had several threads about this during the week, and I concur. It sounds very much hogwashish, but, who knows..

maybe hyperspace will kill NYC traffic once and for all.

I lived on staten island and had a job cross-island. took me 45min to an hour sometimes longer to go 14 miles everyday. cant imagine what those manhattan workers would go through.

I still don't understand why things can't go faster than light. I'm really not a physics person.

I still don't understand why things can't go faster than light. I'm really not a physics person.

The faster something moves, the heavier it becomes. At the speed of light, an object with any mass whatsoever should, according to Einstein's theory, have an infinite mass. That's impossible, for one thing, and it would be impossible to accelerate an object of infinite mass.

The faster something moves, the heavier it becomes. At the speed of light, an object with any mass whatsoever should, according to Einstein's theory, have an infinite mass. That's impossible, for one thing, and it would be impossible to accelerate an object of infinite mass.

Not to my understanding (which I admit, may be flawed)
an object moving at light speed would actually have 0 mass, being entirely energy. the actual reason is that an object DOES get heavier, approaching infinite mass. the point is largely pedantic, I admit, but it stands. you would be far closer to infinite mass at 0.99c than you would be at c. I believe that an object would once again have mass once past c, but I do admit I could be wrong.



As for the OP... I'd like to think that it's true, but several aspects of the theory just seem wrong. like the whole...

"Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster"

This requires 2 leaps of faith which don't appear to be explained. firstly that big magnetic fields lead to other dimensions, and that the other dimension, assuming it exists, has a higher light speed. Again it was probably really slimmed down for the report, but even so, someone does say...

"a highly controversial theory that would require a significant change in the current understanding of the laws of physics. "

Which could be applied to many things, like my theory that baboons can move faster than light owing to their funny bottoms.

End cynicism.

The faster something moves, the heavier it becomes. At the speed of light, an object with any mass whatsoever should, according to Einstein's theory, have an infinite mass. That's impossible, for one thing, and it would be impossible to accelerate an object of infinite mass.

That makes sense (to a point), but I'm still never studying physics again.

The faster something moves, the heavier it becomes. At the speed of light, an object with any mass whatsoever should, according to Einstein's theory, have an infinite mass. That's impossible, for one thing, and it would be impossible to accelerate an object of infinite mass.

Not to my understanding (which I admit, may be flawed)

Ah, how strangely liberating when even the physics persons don't really know. :p

Not to my understanding (which I admit, may be flawed)
an object moving at light speed would actually have 0 mass, being entirely energy. the actual reason is that an object DOES get heavier, approaching infinite mass. the point is largely pedantic, I admit, but it stands. you would be far closer to infinite mass at 0.99c than you would be at c. I believe that an object would once again have mass once past c, but I do admit I could be wrong.

I'm not sure. I seem to remember being taught that an object with velocity c would have infinite mass, but meh. It's a non-issue, really.

It's a non-issue, really.

of course! but I'm not missing the one chance I can actually contribute something authoratitively, even if I do temper it with lashings of modesty!

of course! but I'm not missing the one chance I can actually contribute something authoratitively, even if I do temper it with lashings of modesty!

Knock yourself out. If it helps, I'll say I was wrong even though I don't actually know

:rolleyes: I prefer walking.

This would be a really cool idea though. I'm fairly certain that an object reaches 0 mass at the speed of light.

its like a crazy cross between warp drive and Event Horizon... nekkid green chicks AND sam neil... cool!!

its like a crazy cross between warp drive and Event Horizon... nekkid green chicks AND sam neil... cool!!

but do you not think that Sam Neil looked unusually freaky by the end? that was the most disturbing part of that movie for me....
*shudders*

They've gone to Plaid!

I've only seen this brought up once before. This time I looked up the New Scientist (http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200) article. Most of it sounds like an adult on Charlie Brown. Hiem seems like an odd cat-
But all this attention only led Heim to retreat from the public eye. This was partly because of his severe multiple disabilities, caused by a lab accident when he was still in his teens. But Heim was also reluctant to disclose his theory without an experiment to prove it. He never learned English because he did not want his work to leave the country. As a result, very few people knew about his work and no one came up with the necessary research funding. In 1958 the aerospace company Bölkow did offer some money, but not enough to do the proposed experiment.
It's hard to follow even or the physics cats, you're apparently not alone-
The majority of physicists have never heard of Heim theory, and most of those contacted by New Scientist said they couldn't make sense of Dröscher and Häuser's description of the theory behind their proposed experiment. Following Heim theory is hard work even without Dröscher's extension, says Markus Pössel, a theoretical physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany. Several years ago, while an undergraduate at the University of Hamburg, he took a careful look at Heim theory. He says he finds it "largely incomprehensible", and difficult to tie in with today's physics. "What is needed is a step-by-step introduction, beginning at modern physical concepts," he says.

The general consensus seems to be that Dröscher and Häuser's theory is incomplete at best, and certainly extremely difficult to follow. And it has not passed any normal form of peer review, a fact that surprised the AIAA prize reviewers when they made their decision. "It seemed to be quite developed and ready for such publication," Mikellides told New Scientist.

Apparently this is why we're listening to the guy-
But in 1982, when researchers at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg implemented Heim's mass theorem in a computer program, it predicted masses of fundamental particles that matched the measured values to within the accuracy of experimental error. If they are let down by anything, it is the precision to which we know the values of the fundamental constants. Two years after Heim's death in 2001, his long-term collaborator Illobrand von Ludwiger calculated the mass formula using a more accurate gravitational constant. "The masses came out even more precise," he says.
...
At the moment, the main reason for taking the proposal seriously must be Heim theory's uncannily successful prediction of particle masses. Maybe, just maybe, Heim theory really does have something to contribute to modern physics. "As far as I understand it, Heim theory is ingenious," says Hans Theodor Auerbach, a theoretical physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who worked with Heim. "I think that physics will take this direction in the future."

I'm far from a physics guy, just thought I'dd add this to the discussion.

Not to my understanding (which I admit, may be flawed)
an object moving at light speed would actually have 0 mass, being entirely energy. the actual reason is that an object DOES get heavier, approaching infinite mass. the point is largely pedantic, I admit, but it stands. you would be far closer to infinite mass at 0.99c than you would be at c. I believe that an object would once again have mass once past c, but I do admit I could be wrong.I'm not sure. I seem to remember being taught that an object with velocity c would have infinite mass, but meh. It's a non-issue, really.

The way I understand it, is that at reletivistic speeds, apparent mass does indeed increase (as 'seen' by an observer, the travelling object not noticing anything different with itself) and the time-passing process is also observed to be slower (again, the object doesn't notice this effect, though if it cared to observe the observer it might see the other as 'suffering' from this). ((There's complications to the objectivity of Observer and Object surrounding the fact that the Observer is assumed not to be undergoing acceleration of any kind, but do we really want to muddy the waters with this?))

From the observer's POV, therefore, actually tansitioning from the speed minutely below the speed of light to the actual speed of light requires an impulse of energy sufficient to accelerate a near-as-damnit infinite mass and takes a very long time to occur [as observed] unless applied infinitesimaly quickly [as object itself would have it], thus (doing some mathemetical shortcutting of a process tantamount to a working version of Xeno's Paradox) no object can reach the SoL if it has mass, at least before the end of time, and the observed mass would have to be infinite it it ever did...

But my understanding does not stretch to the issue of what a photon's "rest-mass" might be, except zero, so if someone can help out there I would be very interested... (From a purely personal POV, so don't feel obliged... ;)

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.
That sounds either like an oversimplification, or really, really hokey.
Such as the use of the term "dimension" when not referring to dimensions, but when referring to alternate universes and such. I had thought using the term like that was strictly sci-fi, am I wrong?

but do you not think that Sam Neil looked unusually freaky by the end? that was the most disturbing part of that movie for me....
*shudders*
sam neil usually freaks me out somehow... and that movie scares the crap out of me, heh...
i can usually sit through almost any horror and laugh through it but that movie really gets me :eek:

but yeah i agree - when he gouges his own eyes out, he looks pretty freaky *nods* ;)

That sounds either like an oversimplification, or really, really hokey.
Such as the use of the term "dimension" when not referring to dimensions, but when referring to alternate universes and such. I had thought using the term like that was strictly sci-fi, am I wrong?
Dröscher looked again at Heim's ideas and produced an "extended" version, resurrecting the dimensions that Heim originally discarded. The result is "Heim-Dröscher space", a mathematical description of an eight-dimensional universe.

From this, Dröscher claims, you can derive the four forces known in physics: the gravitational and electromagnetic forces, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. But there's more to it than that. "If Heim's picture is to make sense," Dröscher says, "we are forced to postulate two more fundamental forces." These are, Dröscher claims, related to the familiar gravitational force: one is a repulsive anti-gravity similar to the dark energy that appears to be causing the universe's expansion to accelerate. And the other might be used to accelerate a spacecraft without any rocket fuel.

This force is a result of the interaction of Heim's fifth and sixth dimensions and the extra dimensions that Dröscher introduced. It produces pairs of "gravitophotons", particles that mediate the interconversion of electromagnetic and gravitational energy. Dröscher teamed up with Jochem Häuser, a physicist and professor of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzgitter, Germany, to turn the theoretical framework into a proposal for an experimental test.
But then doesn't get much clearer-
Dröscher is hazy about the details, but he suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace. Here the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience. If this happens, it would be possible to reach Mars in less than 3 hours and a star 11 light years away in only 80 days, Dröscher and Häuser say.
Again with the source (http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200)

Hmmm. The main problem is that its all theory, even Relativity is not a proven law of physics, just the theory that best describes the interaction of certain constants within the universe. It would be cool if it turned out to work though. Mars in three hours? Hell. I can't even get across Dublin in that time.